Caught in a Trap: Impact Factors and the Scramble for “World Class” Status

Abstract

Globalisation has affected many areas of human endeavour and education has not been exempted. The global Higher Education sector is defined by issues of prestige which have led to the formulation of various ranking systems acting as measures of “global excellence”. The spread of these rankings and the uses they are put to in national and international prestige contests has meant that key questions around the global relevance of rankings methodologies have received less attention than their outputs. Governments have embraced them as means of quantifying “progress” and universities themselves have adopted strategies to enhance their positions. These often come with unintended consequences, at the expense of academic endeavour. This paper examines the context of global rankings, the effects of the pursuit of “global excellence” on academic endeavour, and the growing disquiet within the academic community over obsessive pursuit of “world-class status”.